Bus and rail workers have unanimously backed a call for mandatory sentences to be given to anyone found guilty of assaulting frontline workers after warnings that transport workers could face serious injury or even death if nothing is done to tackle anti-social behaviour.
Tom Foley, National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) Cork branch secretary, proposed a motion at the union’s conference in Cork calling on the Government to pass legislation introducing mandatory sentences for anyone convicted of assaulting bus and rail workers, nurses, gardaí, fire fighters or ambulance crew.
Mr Foley recalled a colleague working as a bus driver in Cork being hit with a shot from a pellet gun three years ago and another being assaulted on the Grand Parade in Cork city at 5.45pm two weeks ago.
“He sustained a serious head injury and is out of work,” he said of the man attacked recently. “He could easily have died from the blow he got to the side of the head. We have not moved forward at all in the past three years. It’s got so dangerous out there that it’s no longer if something will happen, it’s now when something will happen.”
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Mr Foley was backed by fellow Cork delegate Kieran Evans, who said anti-social behaviour on buses and trains has been a long-standing problem and action needs to be taken immediately to deter those engaging in it.
Tom O’Connor, a NBRU national executive member, said: “They get on the bus with their cans, with their drugs. They openly smoke, they inhale, they inject, they drink with impunity. It has to stop and the only way it will stop is when we start to take society back from these degenerates.”
Outrageous
NBRU general secretary Dermot O’Leary said anti-social behaviour on public transport was not just an issue in working-class areas, with some of the most outrageous incidents happening on buses serving universities in Dublin and Cork.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has acknowledged that the establishment of a dedicated transport police unit is “a bit off”, but Mr O’Leary said he believed momentum for such a force was gathering pace.
Antoinette Cunningham, general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, told the conference that sergeants and inspectors fully support the concept of a highly visible, dedicated transport police unit. She said that drawing staff from existing resources to police transport is “just another job from a list of jobs that have to be done by gardaí”.
Damian McCarthy, of the Garda Representative Association, said rank and file gardaí have not voted on any motion to set up a transport police unit but would be supportive of such an initiative. He said the Garda was at least 4,000 available members short of a target of 15,000 cited by the Minister for Justice and Commissioner Drew Harris.
“We need more guards, we need to fast track the recruitment process,” he said. “The workload is too big and there’s a mass exodus from the force. We got 24 (new) guards this year. Three years ago the last government promised 800 new recruits, but Commissioner Harris said he could only recruit 600.”
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Fianna Fáil TD James Lawless, chairman of the Oireachtas justice committee, said he believed the public order situation had worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I think what happened during Covid is that the law-abiding citizens, they did stay at home as they were asked to do but those people who are always up to devilment, they didn’t stay at home and, in many ways they took over our public spaces be it O’Connell Street or buses and trains,” he said.
No deterrent
Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan said increasing levels of violence on public transport was a reflection of increasing levels of violence in the community. He believed such violence was caused by men from the age of 16 to 24 in the Dublin city area.
“One of the problems with violence on public transport is that you know have no chance of meeting a guard on a train or a bus whereas in other aspects of life, there is a chance you might meet a guard,” he said. “We need to look at that because there is no deterrent on a train or a bus once they take off.”
Sinn Féin Sligo-Leitrim TD Martin Kenny said anti-social behaviour ranges from bad manners right through to extreme aggression, which was leading to a public perception that is not safe to use public transport. This was the biggest obstacle to getting more people, particularly women, to use buses and trains, he said.
Fine Gael Senator Jerry Buttimer said there was a reluctance by legislators to change the model of policing, but changes need to be looked at closely.
